By 2020 a completely propellantless (no material particles expelled for propulsion) or "field propulsion-type" aerospace vehicle will land on the Moon.

Not directly related to this bet, but I'd like to nominate "obsoleting the cutting edge since 2050" in the category of 'Most meaningless slogan'.

The idea of a propellantless drive isn't incredible to me, although I haven't seen any evidence that any practical form of such a drive will be around by 2020.

However, Mr. Dillon's bet has some details that offer me grave doubts.

For one thing, he says, in part:

I have initiated a new patent project to combine the Wallace device and several other new technologies [including] fuelless concepts such as Tom Bearden's new "motionless electromagnetic generator".

I think Mr. Dillon is probably aware that Tom Bearden is considered, by a great many people, to be a quack -- and probably Mr. Dillon is unfazed by this, but it seems important to me. Mostly because I strongly suspect that they're right, that Bearden is either a kook or a conman, and that his MEG device doesn't do anything interesting at all.

See, frex, James Randi's discussion of MEG at http://www.randi.org/jr/051002.html and http://www.randi.org/jr/051702.html.

In fact, Mr. Dillon seems to be relying quite heavily on several technologies which, to be fair, are unproven and controversial. Some, like the Henry Wallace "kinemassic" technology, have been around a long time (more than 30 years, in this case) without significant or replicated results. That's not very impressive, and it doesn't speak well for a goal of putting something on the moon less than twenty years from now.

I also note that in Dillon's website, he claims to have been able to control lightning bolts, apparently through psychokinesis. I allow that this is perhaps not impossible, but (A) it's a bold claim, made without supporting evidence, and (B) it seems more significant to me than a mere propellantless drive. If the claim is true, then I think Dillon's research should pursue that phenomenon instead. Again, if true, it shouldn't be too hard to test, verify, and replicate, nor to document and have witnessed.

Still, the LongBet, as phrased by LongBets staff member Catherine M. Bacon, seems reasonable. Personally, I think it's a losing proposition. By 2050, maybe, although most likely not using the technologies described by Dillon.

On the other hand, the official bet says "no material particles expelled", which suggests that a small lightsail vehicle could be placed in orbit, unfurled, and then crashed into the moon on solar light pressure. Technically, such a vehicle would also reflect "material particles" of the solar wind, but it would not literally "expel" them, so I guess it would qualify.

I don't know of any plan to crash a lightsail vehicle into the moon any time soon, but it could happen by 2020, and it would satisfy the letter of the bet if not the spirit.

The real key to this bet is the timescale. Even if there is a 'propellantless' drive being developed out there (and I have seen no evidence that there is, although lots of research) the odds of a major aerospace company getting it from drawing board to production, never mind the moon, in 18 years are miniscule. Believe me, aerospace comapnies are like dinosaurs mating, slow, ponderous and not very pleasant to watch. They would need to have a working version NOW to have any hope of a moonshot within 20 years.

Work on thrusting against the earth's magnetic field suggests that some form of propellantless drive may be consistent with physics as we understand it. The light sail proposal is another interesting candidate. On the other hand, I feel the 17 year timescale suggested is too short for anything but a stunt to result in reaching the moon with these technologies. Even if a true breakthrough occured within the next 7 years, mounting the motivation, resouces, and development to go to the moon is unlikely within the next 10.

I think it is entirely possible if this event is already very far along.
However, if such a craft goes to the moon it will probably go as a development of a major government and with a top secret classification. A propellantless craft? What air force wouldn't be all over that one?

If this tecknoligy doues exist then I must belive that it would be held as a very black project by the u.s. goverment. If the u.s. has such a program I don't think their goal would be to get to the moon. it would be develiped as a wepons platform. We would not know of it for a very long time. I would be suprised if we found out about any such program for the the next 40 years. The time line here is just to short. ( That is if there is a program.) If you have any "proof" please respond.

Proving that the US government ISN'T developing or trying to develop a reactionless drive or any other technology in a "black" program is logically impossible.

On the civilian front, some long-term NASA research programs which could have led to reactionless drive were "unfunded" recently - I'm specifically referring to NASA's "Breakthrough Propulsion" program.

I am on the whole a strong supporter of space technology and would be one of the first to cheer when (not "if") either a workable gravity modulation device (not "antigravity") and/or reactionless drive is developed.

However, I think that it's time we in the space rooting section grew up and realized that most of our fellow humans simply don't care about space flight, and should not be made to pay for technology they don't care about. When NASA was a front for defense programs to develop boosters that could loft Big Bird and other reconsats, there was a firm moral case for the taxpayer funding the whole show - and they got value for money, not just from "spin-offs" (microcomputers have probably kept the US the number one military and economic superpower, if nothing else) but from the stability which came from our being able to inflict unacceptable losses on the world's OTHER superpower in the event of a major war thanks to our space technology. I'm sure others will disagree.

However, just because NASA's out of the gravity modulation business in any serious way (and I submit that a NASA program with a total budget of US $300,000 is NOT a serious attempt to develop new technology) doesn't mean everyone is.

One of the former prime investigators in NASA's shoestring gravity modulation technology project, Dr. Ning Li, withdrew from that project (citing personality conflicts with the rest of the team) and is now working in China. China, by the way, has announced intentions to go into manned spaceflight in a big way. Since a major justification of NASA's gravity modulation program was to provide a micrometeroroid shield for the International Space Station (like Star Trek's "deflector shield"), one can see how Dr. Li might be busy for a long, long time.

One of the few virtues of the Chinese system is a long, long viewpoint that allows them to undertake work which would span several Presidential terms here in the US. One wonders how the Tennessee Valley Authority and other economic development projects of undeniable value would have fared under a Presidential two-term limit. I can't see Henry Wallace having had the support to carry out FDR's grand designs.

If we want to have reactionless drives and/or gravity modulation, we must take G. Harry Stine's advice - start businesses to make them happen. Otherwise, we have to rely on grossly wasteful, irrational and often corrupt (as in Congressional "pork") government programs which probably WON'T deliver.

Example - has a government-funded fusion research center produced a commercially-viable power reactor technology? No. Is this about to happen? Probably not.

Heck, if it hadn't been for Uncle Sam twisting the power industry's arms to build fission power plants (to keep that cheap plutonium flowing to US nuclear weapons plants), NO nuclear power would be economically viable. Just look at the countries which use nuclear power to produce a major portion of their electric power and you see the declared and undeclared members of the Nuclear Weapons Owners Club - Switzerland, the Scandinavian countries, Japan, Taiwan and Germany excepted - for now. There's just no other economic reason to make electrical power from nuclear energy than the fact that you're also making plutonium.

Fusion doesn't even have that "advantage," unless you build your fusion plant as a "breeder," surrounding its core with "blankets" of lithium, deuterium, and uranium in order to capture the leftover neutrons to make more nuclear fuels. Might work, might not. I notice that very few civilian fission power plants incorporate breeder technology due to its expense and its production of militarily useful byproducts, which need to be guarded at extra expense from terrorists and would-be dealers in illicit nuclear weapons technology.

Getting back to my original premise, though, business models need to be created, REAL business models, which create wealth from the actions required to develop reactionless drives and gravity modulation, or there will be neither - unless possession of these technologies confers the same sort of massive military edge that nuclear weapons now do, and that's a bit of a stretch in my humble opinion (although recent USDoD publications on the growing Chinese military machine seem to point to a renewed arms race in space as China and the US jockey for position to secure space militarily).

Bill Gates, are you reading this? :-)

Proving that the US government ISN'T developing or trying to develop a reactionless drive or any other technology in a "black" program is logically impossible.
Well, maybe not entirely.

It should be theoretically possible to identify a) the total amount of money going into the US government b) Sufficiently accurate estimates of what is going into all other black programmes hence showing c) that there is insufficent left for major technology development programme.

Of course that is exactly the sort of thing you are not supposed to be able to find out about black programmes. So, unless you happen to be a professional spy organisation you're pretty much right.

Paul Blay wrote:
"Proving that the US government ISN'T developing or trying to develop a reactionless drive or any other technology in a "black" program is logically impossible.
Well, maybe not entirely."

Believe me, if USAF wants a program "black," it'll be "black." The F-117 is a clear case in point. Until it was actually used in Panama, no one was even sure what its general shape was.

"It should be theoretically possible to identify a) the total amount of money going into the US government b) Sufficiently accurate estimates of what is going into all other black programmes hence showing c) that there is insufficent left for major technology development programme."

Looks like there's a logical problem with step (b) - the budgets for all black programs are by definition classified information, so you never get to step (c).

"Of course that is exactly the sort of thing you are not supposed to be able to find out about black programmes. So, unless you happen to be a professional spy organisation you're pretty much right."

And if I were, I wouldn't admit it :-)

"Looks like there's a logical problem with step (b) - the budgets for all black programs are by definition classified information, so you never get to step (c)."

It's the subtle shade of difference between
"You d*nm well shouldn't be able to know that." (of budget sizes of existant black projects) and
"It is literally impossible to know that." (of budget sizes of black projects that don't exist).

"And if I were, I wouldn't admit it :-)"
I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you.

Well, I was THERE before the beginning of the stealth program, and the assertation that no one knew anything about it beforehand fails for anyone who got copies of Aviation Week during that period. An engineer where I worked at the time saw an article elsewhere that involved using carbon fiber/epoxy to make a new composite material. His first thought (he more or less ran down the hall shouting, but this hall was in a high security vault) that you could then make material that had a resistance of 377 ohms per square -- same as air/vacuum, and it would eat radio waves. The rest is history, with one heck of a lot of work to get the rest of the various signatures and detectabilities minimized -- no one had worried them too much, but suddenly there was a reason. All was published in the trade magazines, but the trick was, so *much* was published that no one we didn't want to know was able to find out which option set we were really spending the money on to field a useful device.

Dr.G.Balasubramanian Ph D ,
5 Urani Street
K.Pudur
Madurai 625007
INDIA

Friends, I fabricated and tested a propepllentless propulsion machine , named by me as "Konnukobbu"on 6th July 2008 at 8 O clock
IST. I am a retired Physics teacher with a Ph D in Physics doing essential research.I will give the video clips of Konnukobbu operation soon for you to convince about my invention .

There is plenty of time left to develop the device and use it for
satellites and aviation before 2020.

You are welcome to contact me at my e-mail address
drgb1948@yahoo.com

In continuation to the note by me on Jul072008, I show the Konnukoppu Propellantless propulsion machine in the video clip at -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfBUQA9kzk4 -- . The machine is mounted on a wooden blank supported on 4 ball bearings . The machine is powered by a 1/8 hp ac motor. when the motor is switched, the machine accelarates in one direction. The wheels are for frictionless support only, they do not provide any drive . Please check and comment

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